Re: Zen Fibre Office Plus VS Recent Packages

I suggest if the OP wants to pick the website wording apart they ring Zen and do it wth them.

I've told you how it works, even if Zen have chosen not to publish that - But clearly that's not being accepted so I will bid you and the OP good day.

Unfortunately you've not clarified how it works - you've clarified your ASSUMPTIONS I'm afraid. You are trying to align some products/services offered by BT Openreach and/or BT Wholesale and assume that Zen's service must include the same features. It is not clear either way in reality.

The purpose of my commentary was to assist in the OP in giving them a way to help understand the differences and potential extras - or non-extras as the case may be.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, but you're making a statement as if you have some authoritative ability to do so, but in reality you do not.

If nothing else, as this product from Zen is available WITH and WITHOUT a phone line, there is absolutely a degree of variance in the service level they can purchase in the first place from the various parts of BT plc - Zen could not order Critical Care on a PSTN/WLR3 line they do not provide, and there is no discussion to be had on that point - only the CP that "owns" that circuit can do so.

Re: Zen Fibre Office Plus VS Recent Packages

Thanks for your feedback - yes, I remember reading elsewhere in this forum that the 'critical care' isn't really worth much (i.e. the brain reads that and thinks 'SLA for everything involved in the broadband service' but of course it is far from that).

So it sounds like 'Unlimited Fibre 2' would be a sensible option - I bet the regrade will start another 12 month lockin period even though I've been on rolling month contract for a few some years now

An SLA is only an "agreement" (the "A" bit) - and not a guarantee although people get confused as they're similar. The SLA in this case offers some guidelines on what they'll try, but doesn't guarantee it, except that they say should they fail to meet the guideline they'll give you a sum of money in credit. However as you'll see the credit is not close to the significant uplift in monthly cost, and in reality even if you had a fault every single month, you'd not be in a cost neutral position to the package sans SLA.

In reality, I would always suggest if for some reason you did want to have the best chance of keeping connected, the money spent on the uplift to the SLA package would be better spent on a second connection. It still does't help with some types of fault of course, but my experience shows (bearing in mind I do this for a living) that multiple connections from different providers - and preferably via different carriers/wholesalers will normally deliver a much better protection level - the "hit rate" of that saving you is pretty good - and relatively inexpensive.

As you seem to have determined in any case, the SLA is probably not worth it - and I'd save the money

Also - yep, a new Fibre contract with Zen does start a new 12 month term.

Re: Zen Fibre Office Plus VS Recent Packages

Thanks - I would expect that the line itself with the normal rental cost gets me an acceptable uptime, otherwise that would be grounds for getting a different ISP (not including stuff like idiots cutting cables in roadworks etc). The only meaning of SLA for me would be a guarantee to either keep things up, or be able to motivate/move the stakeholders to fix any problems swiftly. I interpret anything else to be marketing lies.

So far Zen does a good job maintaining uptime - I do get d/c'd now and then even with the business line, but its not prolonged.

The money is better spent on a remote server maintaining a VPN to get me the internet access I'm trying to buy in the first place.

Yes, I'm waiting to phone Zen up next week due to the following:

'If you decide to regrade your service within your minimum service period, early termination charges will apply'

I'm on a rolling month contract but I need to ensure they don't fine me for any reason (I'm just after a smooth transition from one month to the next).

Re: Zen Fibre Office Plus VS Recent Packages

I used to run 1xADSL2+ and 1xFTTC, but taking a gamble on 2xVDSL these days, reason being that 4G has improved such that this is now an option. Though I generally see more power outages than broadband ones.

Plenty of CPE do failover to the 4G USB stick too.

A lot depends on the costs of not having access, or whether you can simply grab laptop go elsewhere and carry on working

Re: Zen Fibre Office Plus VS Recent Packages

I used to run 1xADSL2+ and 1xFTTC, but taking a gamble on 2xVDSL these days, reason being that 4G has improved such that this is now an option. Though I generally see more power outages than broadband ones.

Plenty of CPE do failover to the 4G USB stick too.

A lot depends on the costs of not having access, or whether you can simply grab laptop go elsewhere and carry on working

So far (for me) the gamble hasen't fallen foul. I know there's less resiliance and ADSL was something I considered but the price point isn't much more than FTTC these days.

Cable, just couldn't bring myself to go there until the future sorts everything network wise (hopefully)

I have NGA's at either end of the street and it was hope to have my new line put onto the other (and closer) one - but they said no it had to go to the NGA that was currently in use for my other line.

That, I think would have made the redundancy a bit better but they wouldn't play ball. I should have waited until the NGA was full again, I might have had some leverage then.

Re: Zen Fibre Office Plus VS Recent Packages

I used to run 1xADSL2+ and 1xFTTC, but taking a gamble on 2xVDSL these days, reason being that 4G has improved such that this is now an option. Though I generally see more power outages than broadband ones.

Plenty of CPE do failover to the 4G USB stick too.

A lot depends on the costs of not having access, or whether you can simply grab laptop go elsewhere and carry on working

Whereas I have FTTC + FTTC + FTTC plus an ADSL Backup + 4G Backup.

I keep ADSL backup because the risk with FTTC is higher of something happening to the cab - floods, theft, vehicle in the cab, and 4G whilst worth having is too restrictive in usage if the issue was prolonged (and ADSL is cheap).